Christmas Cupcake 2016

 With fondant left from the Christmas box cake, I decorated some cute cupcakes.

Christmas Cookie 2016

These were the egg free sugar cookie with the egg free royal icing.

Christmas Gift Box Cake

My Christmas Gift Box cake last year was a great practice, but not as nice as I wanted to be. I was too ambitious. This year, I tried again by making one box with a simpler bow.

First I made two batches of  Marshmallow Fondant. Three days before making the cake, I made the fondant pieces for the cake top, and the side decoration.

The cake was an 8" cube. In order to save time, I used the 16" square pan to bake a 16"x16"x2" cake and then divided it to four 8"x8"x2" cakes. The filling was chocolate buttercream frosting.

Ingredients for cake
Egg - 20 Large
Cake flour - 340g
Oil - 160g
Milk - 160g
Sugar - 240g for egg white
Sugar - 120g for egg yolk

I needed 4 batches of chocolate buttercream frosting, and each batch used
Crisco solid vegetable shortening - 1/2 cup

Butter, softened - 1/2 cup (1 stick)
Cocoa powder - 3/4 cup
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Sifted confectioners' sugar - 4 cups (approximately 1 lb.)
Milk - 3-4 TBSP

Cakes with crumb coating should be refrigerated for 2 hours+ or overnight. After that, wrap the cake with white fondant, and then decorate with the circles, bow, and berries.

Then just let the rich chocolate flavor up the holidays!

Chocolate Covered Heart Cake

Ingredients:

Milk - 180g
Unsweetened Cocoa powder - 40g
Sugar - 80g
Gelatin - 1 bag (7.5g)

Steps:

1. Bake some perfect heart shaped Chiffon cakes with Silikomart Armorini Silicone Mold .

2. Put all ingredients in a pot, and let it settle for 5 minutes.
3. Heat up the mixture at low heat until the cocoa powder, and gelatin are fully dissolved.
4. Sieve the solution thru fine mesh sieve to get a smooth glaze.

5. Wait for the glaze to cool to lukewarm, around 80°F. Put cake on a stand, then pour chocolate glaze all over. Make sure all sides are covered.

6. Put cake in refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving.

Fall Foliage Cake

I visited the White Mountains of NH two weeks ago, and was overwhelmed by the endless color in display. The mountains were full of light and color even in a cloudy day.
The cake is an attempt to capture the season. It is chiffon cake with whipped cream, similar to the Christmas Poinsettia Cake. Let's every leaf radiates warmth and bliss.

Moon Cake 2016

It seems that summer is not over yet, the supermarket is already flooded with moon cakes to remind everyone mid-autumn festival is coming. Well, I do not mind to eat moon cakes way ahead of the festival.

This year's flavor - red bean, purple yam, lotus seed, taro, coffee, chocolate, Mocha, and lotus seed with egg yolk.
Cantonese Style Moon Cake
Snowy Moon Cake

Banana Roll (香蕉软糕)

Banana roll is a classic Hong Kong dim sum that is typically made with banana extract. As a healthier alternative, or more importantly, a way to get rid of over-ripe bananas, here is one made with real banana.

The portion of glutinous rice flour vs. rice flour is not that strict. The more glutinous rice flour, the softer the end product. It is up to personal preference, so is the amount of sugar. 

Ingredients:

Glutinous rice flour - 2.5 cup
Rice flour - 1 cup
Hot water - 1 and 1/3 cup
Sugar - 1 to 1.5 cup depends on your taste
Vegetable oil - 2 tsp
Over-ripe bananas - 6-7
Cooked glutinous rice flour - about 1/2 cup for coating

Steps:

1. Roast some glutinous rice flour on non-stick fry pan if you do not have.
2. Mix and sift glutinous rice flour and rice flour together.
3. Peel the bananas and put in stand mixer, add sugar and oil. Blend until smooth. Then add hot water, mix well.
4. Add in flour in batches, mix well.
5. Grease a 8 x 8 baking pan, pour in batter, steam in high heat for 30-40 minutes.

6. Cool the cake to lukewarm before cutting it into stripes.
7. Roll each piece in cooked glutinous rice flour to fully coat it.